Bee Swarm!

I seem to be having interesting weekends right now. Last weekend we had snow, this weekend temperatures into the 90s F, plus we had a swarm of bees hanging out on a tree branch.

I kept a close eye on the situation because welcome though they are, I didn’t want the bees thinking the eaves of my house are an appropriate place to build their hive, as happened last week to one of my neighbors. The bees made it from there inside the main part of the house and obviously that’s not where you want bees.

swarm of beesI was going to call Vector Control this morning to see if they’d come move the bees, and if that didn’t work, start seeking out local beekeepers. I’d far rather they be moved alive into a suitable home, as bees have enough trouble with Colony Collapse Disorder; they don’t need pest control killing them. But, as is common for honeybee swarms, they moved on about 24 hours after they arrived.

The kids were fascinated, and I gave various of our neighbors permission to come over and show their kids the swarm. Swarming bees are supposed to be relatively gentle after all, with no hive to protect. It’s a good lesson for the kids to be able to get so close and to see such interesting behavior from the bees.

The hardest part was keeping the kids out of the backyard the rest of the time. The bees arrived sometime on Saturday, so pretty much all weekend the backyard was off limits to play. I didn’t want them to accidentally agitate the bees, after all. My youngest took that pretty hard, as she always wants to go out and play.

It’s a bit difficult for the bees to find a good place for a hive that isn’t someone’s home around here. The neighborhood is too young for there to be many large trees, and it being southern California there aren’t many that just grow on their own either. I’m really hoping they found a good place.

My one wish is that I had gotten to see them leave, as it would have been nice to know the direction, in case a neighbor ends up with them. Be nice to warn them before the bees get comfortable and make sure they know there are better options than calling pest control. We think we missed the departure by minutes, as we kept checking on them all yesterday afternoon, and saw a few stragglers still on the branch, and a few more headed over the fence.

My son took a picture of the swarm at rest to school today for show and tell. Great adventure for a kindergartner, after all. Bees tend to inspire such fear and awe in young children.

Remember the Wildflowers for Your Garden

I always love planting a good vegetable garden. There’s just something about that fresh produce that can’t be touched by any other source. But my gardens are never just about the vegetables. I include flowers as well. Are you making sure to include wildflowers in your garden?

Wildflowers, especially of native varieties, are wonderful for your garden. They grow better than other plants as they’re adapted to the climate. Many attract bees and other pollinators, and can be beneficial to native wildlife.

Select the right varieties, and they’re also beautiful. That’s true even here in southern California, where most people don’t think of the native plants as beautiful. There are some great ones for gardens. The California poppy is perhaps the best known. There’s a quite lovely larkspur that is native to the part I live in right now that produces stunning, deep purple blooms. I learned about that one when it volunteered itself in the backyard last year.

Wildflowers may not be beautiful year round, which is why not all gardeners like them. If you want them to keep growing year after year, you have to let at least some of the flowers go to seed, which may not be the most attractive time for the plant either. But if you do this, you won’t have to keep planting them year after year. Some of the seeds should come up on their own. Do clear out the dry plants after they’ve gone to seed and add them to your compost pile.

Letting the seeds go on their own does mean a more random, natural look to your garden. That’s one of the things I love about it, but that is difficult for others to appreciate. If you want your flower garden to look a bit more organized, you may need to harvest the seeds yourself and plant them where you’d prefer that they grow.

Wildflower seeds shouldn’t be too hard to find. Look at local garden centers and find out which wildflowers are native to your area. You may also have to check with your Homeowner’s Association if you’re planting them where others can see, as some associations are really picky about what you can grow.

Choose well, plant them in the right kind of soil, and you should have some lovely native flowers to enjoy from your garden in the months to come. A good mix of species will add wonderful colors to your garden.

April Showers Bring… Snow? In Southern California!

It was a strange weekend. It was supposed to be my kids’ first soccer game. That got snowed out.

We had some warning of the weird weather, but none of the parents believed me when I insisted that the games would be canceled. They said the league only cancels games for thunderstorms. Well, ice, snow, and temperatures below 40 degrees F at game time turned out to be quite sufficient to cancel as well. Good thing, since we wouldn’t have let the kids play in those temperatures anyhow. Soccer uniforms aren’t too good for that, and I can’t imagine parents sitting around watching a game in such cold weather.

I’ve come to regret thinking so much about how soccer was going to go, however. I completely forgot to consider my garden, so now we’re waiting to see what survived the cold.

So far the tomatoes look all right. The peppers looked bad with the snow on the, but might survive after all. Both are in containers, so we should have brought them in to be sure they’d be all right. We’ve done that before. It’s probably a good thing we don’t have any other vegetables planted quite yet.

We’ve been cracking a few climate change jokes. We know that climate change is a long term, global phenomenon, but when local weather gets so strange, jokes are easy to make. A bit over a week ago, we had temperatures up to 90. Makes the snow feel so much colder when you aren’t used to it anymore. And this week we may get into the 80s again, depending on how the weather really goes. The whole winter was on the unusual side, with days of pouring rain in December to where we got the usual for an entire year that week, then a dry January, and just a lot of ups and downs with the temperatures.

Now we’re just waiting for summer. Everyone I talk to is convinced it’s going to be a really hot summer. We’ll have to see how it goes.

How Does Being Eco Friendly Effect Your Relationship?

One of the most difficult parts about trying to raise a family in an eco friendly way is when you don’t have agreement in your household about what you should and should not be doing. Very often one person will feel much more strongly than the other about environmental topics, and this can lead to disagreements. Is being eco friendly being hard on your family?

Kids

Kids are interesting creatures, as any parent will tell you. They can be so amazingly eco friendly one day, utterly indifferent the next. They’ll be passionate about things you may never have considered.

It’s vital that you give your kids the habit of being green. This is easiest when they’re young, so it’s just a fact of life for them.

If they’re resisting, talk to them about it. Resistance can be a sign of not understanding the problem, an issue with peer pressure or simple disinterest. See what you can do about it.

Fortunately, more and more kids are aware of environmental issues these days, so you can find good examples for them if you look around.

Husband

If there’s anyone more difficult for a mom to change than her kids, it’s often her husband. Most mean well, they try, but if it’s not a subject he’s interested in you’re going to have quite a battle.

With my own husband, it’s his willingness to go the easy way rather than considering sustainability at times that can drive me up the wall. I finally have him understanding why plastic bags don’t go in the regular recycling. Not because I told him, but because he talked to a professional who explained that plastic bags tend to generate static electricity, stick to everything else whether or not it’s the right sort of plastic, and generally cause trouble. They need to go through the recycling at the grocery store.

On the plus side, he gets the recycling mostly right, loves to garden, and composts when possible, which sadly isn’t much where we are now. He also likes his Klean Kanteen water bottle I got for him to use at work.

The key is proper communication with each other. It doesn’t do a lot of good for your relationship to yell at each other over your differences. It’s better if you can talk about them.

Make sure your communication includes why you’re making the changes you are and why you support the causes you do. Education is a big part of being environmentally friendly. Otherwise it all feels like extra hassle to a lot of people. If you show your husband and kids as appropriate why you don’t use certain things or certain brands, they may be more cooperative in the matter.

Your own attitude can be a problem as well. If you have too much of an attitude that you know best, you’re going to put people off. You need to accept that sometimes you will have different priorities and even develop different opinions despite looking at the same information. That’s fine. What you should be hoping for is that you will both make an effort to understand the other’s perspective.

Remember, marriage doesn’t make you one. You are still two different people hoping to spend your lives together. You’re going to have differences. Don’t let the differences obscure what’s good.

The Parts You Can Enjoy Together

The great part about raising your family in an eco friendly way is that there are so many things you can enjoy together. Hiking, camping, fresh foods. Even learning to live with less than others can be a pleasure with the right attitude. It’s not things that make us happy, as a rule. It’s having people you care about with you.

How Viable Is Solar Power?

Since I’m posting on nuclear power, I think it makes sense to post about the alternatives. The big reason there’s such a push for nuclear power is that too many people think the less polluting alternatives aren’t viable. I think they are, although I recognize that it’s going to take a long time before they’re in sufficiently common use.

Solar power in particular has improved in recent years. Panels with a lower cost per watt have been developed, as low as $1 per watt, although they’re not yet in common use. There are even solar roof shingles, so you don’t have to have to put up separate panels.

It’s not all about putting solar panels on houses, for example. Back in the 1980s there was some interesting work on a solar power tower that could generate electricity even at night and on cloudy days.

More big box businesses have realized that solar power is affordable enough for them to put panels up on their roofs – a great use for the space, I think. Solar power has come a long way to be seen as a reasonable investment for businesses to make for powering their stores.

Can Solar Power Take You Off the Grid?

Many people see solar power as a way to get off the grid. It’s a lovely goal, but not absolutely necessary. You may prefer to remain connected so that when you aren’t generating enough power on your panels, you still get electricity from the grid.

You can, of course, have your panels charge batteries so that you don’t need to be connected to the grid. It’s an added expense to the system, but not impossible, and is a great choice if you’re not close enough to be easily connected to the grid anyhow.

But Doesn’t Solar Power Need Subsidies to Be Economically Viable?

Many people say that solar power isn’t viable because it takes subsidies from the government to make it worth anyone’s while. That’s close enough to true, but it’s not the whole picture. Nuclear power gets subsidies. Oil companies get subsidies. Why is it so unreasonable for solar and other renewable energy sources to get subsidies as well?

Consider also that in California there are companies right now willing to install solar power systems on homes for free, and then charge the homeowners for the the electricity generated. The idea is that the homeowner will get a steady rate even if electricity prices go up (or down, that’s the gamble, unlikely as down may seem). These companies aren’t doing that out of the goodness of their hearts. They expect to make a profit while doing something good for the environment.

What About the Environmental Impact of Solar Panel Materials?

There is absolutely an environmental impact to the manufacture and disposal of solar panels. Just as with any other material, we have to mine for many of the supplies. We mine for coal, pump oil from underground, and mine for uranium too.

The wonderful part about solar panels is that significant parts of the panels can be recycled. They won’t just end up in the landfill, or have to be stored safely away for generations. They can be taken apart and made into new things.

How Long Until Solar Power Is More Common?

There’s the big question. What’s it going to take for solar power to become more commonly used, so that more people can see that it is viable?

I can’t say exactly, but I believe the time is coming. Cleco Company in Louisiana is testing solar panels there now, as well as other renewable energy technologies. The U.S. Government has a Solar Energy Technologies Program which focuses on developing solar technologies. The viability of solar power is being reviewed in Pennsylvania (PDF) as well.

Overall, progress is being made, and solar power is becoming steadily more practical. If you have the budget and a place to install solar panels, it’s worth researching to see what benefit you can get in your area.